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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27102742">Lighthouse</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Five_seas/pseuds/Five_seas'>Five_seas</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nobody Asked for This Either [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Shaman King (Anime &amp; Manga)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Freeform, Friendship, Multi, Slice of Life</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 04:42:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,606</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27102742</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Five_seas/pseuds/Five_seas</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They didn't care if they didn't make sense. </p>
<p>Or at least that was what they told themselves. </p>
<p>Felt like doing some writing prompts about the Lilly 5.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Nobody Asked for This Either [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1780996</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Lighthouse</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don't own Shaman King.</p>
<p>This is sort-of-a-sequel to Dreams Are Sweet Until They're Not, although in all honesty, it's more of me writing loosely interconnected snippets.</p>
<p>I'm using this prompt list: https://fromthepnw.wordpress.com/2016/08/16/52-one-word-writing-prompts/</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b> Wonder </b>
</p>
<p>In all their history, Lilly had never seen Sharona take such an instant dislike to someone as she did to Yoh and his friends. </p>
<p>Sure, she wasn’t the easiest person to win over to start with. Even before the tournament started, their self-professed leader had been harsh, stubborn, and mistrustful of “nice guys.” Then there was the “accident” and… well…</p>
<p>She supposed it wasn’t all that surprising, after all. But still… Lilly had never know Sharona to be irrational. </p>
<p>“Did you really just tell Ellie to attack Yoh’s friend on sight?” she asked as Sharona hung up.</p>
<p>“Yes.” </p>
<p>“You don’t think that… talking to the guy first might be a safer bet? Just to make sure that they don’t have some sort of knowledge that we don’t have?” </p>
<p>If looks could kill, Lilly would have been a pile of ashes by now. </p>
<p>“Trust me,” the blonde said, eventually. “We won’t miss out on anything.”</p>
<p>
  <b> Growth </b>
</p>
<p>Sarah-Jane Ward wasn’t an intellectual type.</p>
<p>She knew it, her teachers knew it, her foster parents never missed an opportunity to remind her of it… And normally, that wouldn’t have mattered. Girls weren’t <i> supposed </i> to be bright, after all, and it didn’t matter if she couldn’t wrap her head around a basic IQ test so long as she was pretty.</p>
<p>There was, however, one metaphor she had learned very early on.</p>
<p>“Issues with impulse control.”</p>
<p>Sally was not supposed to fight.</p>
<p>Sally was not supposed to swear.</p>
<p>Sally was not supposed to be more of a handful than all the boys in the school. </p>
<p>But she did, and she was. Even if she grew into a decent-looking woman, she was still the designated troublemaker no matter what she did or didn’t do. Her “issues with impulse control” morphed into “attitude” which in turn morphed into “being a fucking bitch.” Eventually, she gave up on trying to find the logic and leaned all the way into that.</p>
<p>After all, she wasn’t smart, so why bother to begin with.</p>
<p>That was why Sharona’s idea made her start.</p>
<p>“I thought you said I wear my emotions on my sleeve,” she said. “Weren’t you mad that I brought that house down on top of you?”</p>
<p>“I am mad,” Sharona said. “And I do think you are too transparent. That’s why you and Ellie are coming with me. I can keep an eye on you and there is no chance that <i> those guys </i> will learn anything from Lilly.”</p>
<p>Millie, of course, had to jump in at that point and ask why <i> she </i> wasn’t being brought in on reconnaissance. Never mind the scheme itself was dangerous - splitting up only to join Hao’s group and gaining intelligence on them was probably Sharona’s most suicidal plot yet - Millie had to know why she was the one left behind.</p>
<p>Sally listened to the others dance around the obvious, unable to so much as speak from shock. She had always assumed she was the tank of the group - too dumb for any kind of cunning plans, too strong for anything other than brute destruction. Even if Sharona thought she was more of a liability when she had nothing to do, the fact that she was allowed to be part of that meant something… right?</p>
<p>Could she hope that she had grown a bit?</p>
<p>Millie was still not getting it. She didn’t want the group to split. She wanted to stay with Ellie. Let Sally and Lilly stay back - she could take out far more people at once and she was far more destructive.</p>
<p>Sighing, Sally knelt down and took the little girl by the shoulders.</p>
<p>“Mills,” she said. “We don’t know what these guys can do. If everything goes sideways, we can’t protect you and Lilly.”</p>
<p>“But—!”</p>
<p>“Lilly can find us no matter where we are.” <i> Living or dead </i> she added in her head. “And you can heal us faster than anybody else. We need you two to be our backup for this.”</p>
<p>She still hated the arrangement.</p>
<p>She would no matter what.</p>
<p>But when she finally conceded to the plan, there was a visible look of relief on all the others’ faces. “Nicely done,” Sharona said. “You might just be growing up, Sally.”</p>
<p>Was she? She shrugged, deciding to keep things ambiguous, but she couldn’t help herself.</p>
<p>She still felt like a little kid inside.</p>
<p>
  <b> Art </b>
</p>
<p>“New project?” </p>
<p>Millie shrugged.</p>
<p>“Can I see?”</p>
<p>Another shrug. </p>
<p><i> Always a good sign, </i> Ellie thought as she took the notebook from and started looking through it. The first few pages were filled with the same things as usual: doodles from the road, their faces, random people that her sister had liked the look of. Lyserg was a regular feature, of course. Crushes… those had to be a good sign, right? <i> We totally didn’t mess her up. Go, us. </i></p>
<p>Then she turned on the last page.</p>
<p>The sketch was incomplete - little more than a bunch of basic shapes drawn in a ballpoint pen. Millie had only just started adding detail to the figures, but it was hard to mistake those haircuts. </p>
<p>“That’s a very good likeness already,” Ellie managed. “Ryu especially.”</p>
<p>“He was very kind,” Millie said without meeting her eyes. “They were all very kind.”</p>
<p>“They were.” Painful as it was to admit. “Maybe when this tournament is over, we can hang out properly.”</p>
<p>“But why can’t we hang out now? If they don’t hold the sabotage against us…”</p>
<p>That was an excellent question. One which Ellie would have liked to learn the answer to herself. And yet, there she was, having to justify complete bullshit that even she didn’t believe in. <i> Jesus, I’m turning into our mother. </i> “We can’t forget that we’re all competing for the same prize, Millie. Even if we become friends, there is always a chance we might have to face off against each other in a fight.”</p>
<p>“We have such different styles, though.” Her sister looked away. “Aren’t we constantly trying to learn from each other?”</p>
<p>Ellie sighed. “You’ll understand more when you’re older.” </p>
<p>At least she hoped she would.</p>
<p>
  <b> Work </b>
</p>
<p>Love was hard.</p>
<p>It wasn’t just her crush on Lyserg that made her think this - although, if that was what romance was like, Millie could easily see why her parents hadn’t stayed together. How could someone be so indifferent when they were the center of her universe, she could not understand. </p>
<p>But at least with Lyserg, there was that little grain of doubt. What if he wasn’t the one? What if he was just the first guy who was nice to her, and she was just latching onto him? It wasn’t like she was the only one thinking it either.</p>
<p>“Do you think we need to have a chat with him?” Sally had whispered one night around the campfire, when they thought she’d fallen asleep. “I mean, he doesn’t look the part, but we should make it clear that we won’t let him take advantage of her.”</p>
<p>Millie had held her breath as she waited for the response. Technically, Sally had posed it to the whole group, but there was only one person among them whose ‘hunches’ they followed without hesitation.</p>
<p>“I don’t think that’s necessary,” Sharona had replied at last. “He’s not encouraging this at all. She’s not in danger.”</p>
<p>“She follows him around like a puppy!”</p>
<p>“And she will learn why that’s bad the same way we did.” There was a heavy sigh. “I know. I wish it were easier, too.”</p>
<p>She’d bitten her lip and stared into the darkness, telling herself that it was okay. That this was what having a family was like. It was certainly an adjustment after a lifetime of nobody giving a shit what happened to her, but she knew what she would rather have any day of the week.</p>
<p>Millie just wished that the girls didn’t make it so hard for her to love them.</p>
<p>
  <b> Sleep </b>
</p>
<p>It was a running joke among the five of them that they couldn’t find one thing to agree on.</p>
<p>Sure, there were factions - Sally and Ellie were the vegetarians-unless-we-absolutely-have-to. Sharona and Lilly lorded over the budget with an iron hand. Millie was often the swing vote in terms of when they set up camp, simply by virtue of her energy levels. These days, she, Ellie, and Sally formed an increasingly strong vote to get closer to Yoh’s group, even if they couldn’t quite articulate why. </p>
<p>There was, however, one thing that none of them realized until they were forced apart for a while. Their sleep quality had significantly improved on the road.</p>
<p>It was unexpected, to say the least. None of them had ever been the camping type, and they made all sorts of silly mistakes as they learned. Things they had taken for granted, like showers and toilet paper, had become luxuries; and they had started to celebrate the days when they didn’t find a garter snake in their tent. </p>
<p>But they slept longer, their dreams became deeper, and they woke up feeling refreshed. And it had nothing to do with their bedding or the temperature in the desert or even the absence of bugs and reptiles. </p>
<p>It was that they were together.</p>
<p>They knew exactly who was in the tent at all times and they had their spirits on the lookout for any intruders. They knew that if someone was stupid enough to attack them they would watch each other’s backs. There was no more anxiety about what they would wake up to in the morning, no chairs shoved under door handles, no listening for footsteps in the corridor. </p>
<p>They were safe. And that was more than they could hope for.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Y'all know my usual spiel: we love comments and kudos around here, but we love civic engagement even more. Remember to drink your vitamins, look after yourselves, and make sure you research any and all issues you may be voting for wherever you are in the world. There's usually more to it than meets the eye and we need to look out for each other, especially now. </p>
<p>(If you can't tell, the only reason I'm writing is to stave off existential despair.)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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